Ride-along with Metro Transit’s new Police Chief Ernest Morales III New chief plans to bring ‘proactive’

policing to the Twin Cities public transit system

By H. Jiahong Pan

Contributing

Writer

As recently as this past February, the Lake Street/ Midtown Station was hard to navigate. People congregated inside the station by the elevators, on the stairs and on the platform, often smoking or doing drugs or sometimes just trying to stay warm.

They were all gone by late March when the MSR visited the station to interview and shadow Metro Transit’s new police chief Ernest Morales III. When asked what happened to those who loitered at the station, Morales responded, “Oh, I don’t know. I can just tell you that this is Metro Transit property. And I took a proactive position where I had my police officers come out here on a daily basis, just to make sure that commuters were utilizing the system as it was designed to be used.”

Morales, who retired from law enforcement after serving in New York for more than 30 years and was once a professional boxer, was hired in January, but was not sworn in until March 22, after he received his license to be a law enforcement officer in

Metro Transit Police Chief Ernest Morales III speaks with Jean Lawrence Caron about transit safety. Photos by H. Jiahong Pan

Minnesota.

Accompanied by his wife and daughter during his swearing-in, he pledged to take a more proactive— but not necessarily law-and-order— approach to make the system safer.

“Stagnation is simply not an option. I promise not only to be a champion for our police department, but for the organization and the customers and communities we serve,” Morales said to a crowd of agency staff and police officers across the metro area.

When asked why he decided to come to Minnesota, after applying to be police chief in Tallahassee, Florida, serving as deputy police commissioner in Mount Vernon, NY, and sub- his own history of difficulties dealing with the public, in particular communities of color. According to ProPublica, he failed to get medical help for a 28-year-old Hispanic man in 2013. ProPublica also uncovered nine other complaints with 25 allegations against him while he was a New York